Volume Ii Part 34 (1/2)

'I have been looking back on my life; I have had plenty of time during these months of inaction, which I begin to see were fit discipline.

Till Holdsworth left his parish under my charge the other day for six weeks, I have exercised no office of my ministry, as you know that Mr.

Purvis's tone with me cut me off from anything that could seem like meddling with him. I never felt more grateful to any man than I did when Holdsworth made the proposal. It was as if my penance were accepted for the spirit against which you too justly warned me before my Ordination. Sunday was something between a very sorrowful and a very happy day.

'I did not see the whole truth at first. I was only aware of my unhappy temper, which had provoked the immediate punishment; but the effort (generally a failure) to prevent my irritability from adding to the distresses I had brought on my poor wife, opened my eyes to much that I had never understood. Yet I had presumed to become an instructor--I deemed myself irreproachable!

'I believe the origin of the whole was, that I never distinguished a fierce spirit of self-exaltation from my grandmother's n.o.ble resolution to be independent. It was a demon which took the semblance of good, and left no room for demons of a baser sort. Even as a boy at the Grammar-school, I kept out of evil from the pride of proving myself gentlemanly under any circ.u.mstances; the motive was not a bit better than that which made me bully you. I can never remember being without an angry and injured feeling that my uncle's neglect left my grandmother burdened, and obliged me to receive an inferior education; and with this, a certain hope that he would never put himself in the right, nor lay me under obligations. You saw how this motive actuated me, when I never discerned it. I trust that I was not insincere, though presumptuous and self-deceiving I was to an extent which I can only remember with horror. If it approached to sacrilege, may the wilful blindness be forgiven! At least, I knew it not; and with all my heart I meant to fulfil the vows I had taken on me. Thus, when my uncle actually returned, there was a species of revengeful satisfaction in making my profession interfere with his views, when he had made it the only one eligible for me. How ill I behaved--how obstinately I set myself against all mediation--how I wrapped myself in self-approval--you know better than I do. My conceit, and absurdity, and thanklessness, have risen up before me; and I remember offers that would have involved no sacrifice of my clerical obligations--offers that I would not even consider--cla.s.sing them all as 'mere truckling with my conscience.' What did I take for a conscience?

'Ever since, things have gone from bad to worse, grieving my dear grandmother's last year, and estranging me from my poor little sister because she would not follow my dictation. At last my sins brought down the penalty, and I would not grieve except for the innocent who suffer with me. Perhaps, but for them, I should never have felt it.

Nor do I feel tempted to murmur; for there is a strange peace with us throughout, in spite of a sad heart and too many explosions of my miserable temper, and the sight of the hards.h.i.+ps so bravely met by my dear wife. But for all this, I should never have known what she is!

She whispered to me last evening, when she saw me looking tired and depressed, that she had no fears for the future, for this had been the happiest year of her life. Nothing can make her forget to soothe me!

'I have written a long rigmarole all about myself; but an outpouring is sometimes a relief, and you have borne with me often enough to do so now. My poor Clara's pardon, and some kind of clerical duty, are my chief wishes; but my failures in the early part of the year have taught me how unworthy I am to stir a step in soliciting anything of the kind.

Did I tell you how some ten of the boys continue to touch their hats to me? and Smith, the butcher's son, often comes to borrow a book, and consult me on some of the difficulties that his father throws in his way. He is a fine fellow, and at least I hope that my two years at the school did him no harm. I was much impressed with the orderliness at Ormersfield Sunday-school. I wish I could have got half as much religious knowledge into my poor boys. I walked through your turnips in the South field, and thought they wanted rain. Frampton tells me the Inglewood harvest is in very good condition; but I will see the bailiff, and give you more particulars, when I can be better spared from home for a few hours. Kitty's a.s.sistance in writing has discomposed these last few lines.

'Yours ever, 'J.R.F.D.'

Clara turned away and groaned aloud several times as she read; but all she said, as she gave it back to Louis, was, 'What is to be done? You must talk to my uncle.'

'Ah, Clara! young gentlemen of the nineteenth century make but a bad hand of the part of benevolent fairy.'

'I don't think my speaking would be of any use,' said Clara. 'Oh, if this only would have been a boy!'

Lord Ormersfield undertook to sound Mr. Dynevor, and found an early opportunity of asking whether he had heard of poor James's misfortune.

Yes, he had known it long ago. No wonder, with such a temper. Kept it from the child, though. Would not have her always hankering after them.

Was he aware of his great distress and difficulties? Ha, ha! thought so! Fine lady wife! No end of children--served him right!--to bring down his pride.

Lord Ormersfield hazarded a hint that James had seen his errors, and the school was no longer in the way.

'No, no!' said Oliver. 'Too late now. Drink as he has brewed. He should have thought twice before he broke my poor mother's heart with his cantankerous ways. Cheveleigh beneath him, forsooth! I'm not going to have it cut up for a lot of trumpery girls! I've settled the property and whatever other pickings there may be upon my little Clara--grateful, and worthy of it! Her husband shall take Dynevor name and arms--unless, to be sure, he had a t.i.tle of his own. The girl was much admired at Rome last winter, had a fair offer or two, but not a word will she say to any of them. I can't tell what's in her head, not I!'

And he looked knowingly at Lord Ormersfield, and willingly extended his stay at Aix-la-Chapelle, letting Fitzjocelyn organize expeditions from thence to Liege and other places in the neighbourhood.

The two cousins were so glad to be together, and the Earl so much pleased that Louis should have anything which gave him so much delight as this meeting with his old playfellow, that he did all in his power to facilitate and prolong their intercourse. He often sacrificed himself to Oliver's prosings on the Equatorial navigation, that the two young people might be at liberty; and he invited Clara to their early breakfast and walk before her uncle wanted her in the morning. These were Clara's times of greatest happiness, except that it gave her a new and strange sensation to be talked to by his lords.h.i.+p like a grown-up--nay, a sensible woman. Once she said to herself, laughing, 'He really treats me almost as if I were poor Mary herself.' And then came another flash: 'Perhaps he would even like me on the same terms!'

And then she laughed again, and shook her head: 'No, no, my Lord, your son is much too good for that! Uncle Oliver would not have looked so benignant at us when we were sitting in the gardens last night, if he had known that I was giving Louis all my Lima letters. I wish they were more worth having! It was very stupid of me not to know Mary better, so that we write like two old almanacs. However, my letter from hence will be worth its journey to Peru.'

Clara's heart was several degrees lighter, both from the pleasure of the meeting and a suggestion of the Earl's, upon which she had at once acted, and which seemed, even as she laid pen to paper, to bring her somewhat nearer to her brother.

Her letter arrived at No. 5, on the next Monday morning at breakfast-time. It did not at first attract the attention of James.

The Sunday exertions had again left a mental and physical la.s.situde, showing how much care and privation had told upon his strength; and Isabel's still tardy convalescence weighed him down with anxiety for the future, and almost with despair, as he thought of the comforts for want of which she suffered, though so patiently and silently dispensing with them. To his further vexation, he had, on the previous Sat.u.r.day, seen Charlotte receiving at the back-door an amount of meat beyond her orders; and, having checked himself because too angry and too much grieved to speak at once, had reserved the reproof for the Monday, when Charlotte brought in her book of petty disburs.e.m.e.nts.

Failing to detect the obnoxious item, he said, 'Where's the account of the meat that came in on Sat.u.r.day?'

'There, sir!' said Charlotte, indicating the legitimate amount, but blus.h.i.+ng violently.

'That was not all?' he said, with a look of stern, interrogation.